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Tuesday, March 3, 2015

The Daily Kos Reaction to THE SPEECH (Updated)

Michael L.

Daily Kos is merely one progressive venue among others, but it is more or less representative of the Left in the United States, so how they responded to Netanyahu tells us something about how the Left feels about Israel and, inevitably, about the Jewish people.

First, I want to point out that not everyone was entirely negative, only about 98 percent, or thereabouts.

prime responsibility for the security of his people, Netanyahu made a simple, forthright statement in his speech before Congress. His point was that the negotiations under way between Iran and the 5+1 do not point to a nuclear-free Iran. The current negotiations - now going on for over 20 months - have too much slippage that allows Iran to continue its nuclear program. Does Netanyahu have the right to take this position? Of course he does, it is nothing less than his sacred obligation to his people. Most of what is said in contradiction is political toxicity and obscures the point of halting Iran's march toward nuclear weapons.

by Nospinicus on Tue Mar 03, 2015 at 10:37:28 AM PST

That's the point. All the high-pitched hysteria concerning Netanyahu "obscures the point of halting Iran's march toward nuclear weapons."

(Nowhere, by the way, did Netanyahu say that The Bad Deal will automatically lead to war. If I missed that, I hope someone will point it out, because, from what I can tell, Timothy Lange, aka "Meteor Blades," an employee of Markos Moulitsas, is misleading his readership.)

In any case, for every Nospinicus we get ten of these:

"bloodthirsty neocon liar" is in the very first comment under Blade's "diary" by dallasdoc, despite the fact that there was nothing the least bit "bloodthirsty" about the speech. Nothing that he said, from what I can tell, was a lie. And, what's a "neocon" again? I haven't heard much of that kind of talk since Wolfowitz left the White House.

TomP says, "He wants war. He would prefer Americans die (71+ / 0-)

to protect his dreams of Greater Israel."

With 71 uprates, no less. What "greater Israel" has to do with the speech is simply beyond comprehension. By the way, when they use terms like "greater Israel" they are trying to suggest that Israel is far too large and that what Israeli fascists want is to expand the Israeli empire into some sort-of behemoth. It's pure stupidity on its face.

JoanMar, in classic anti-Semitic style, insists that the United States is nothing but a colony of Israel.

looseleaf called Netanyahu a "warmonger," despite the fact that he mongered no wars in this speech. And susan in sc claims to be tired of the "warmongering" despite the fact that there was none. Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees says that Netanyahu has a "warmongering nature."

MarioDemocrat repeats the false "warmonger" charge. LiberalCanuck calls Netanyahu a "warmongering liar," although, so far, it remains a mystery just what Netanyahu is said to be lying about. And Inland, filled with righteous indignation, thinks that Netanyahu called for war, when he did not.

And willard landreth, meanwhile, hopes that Arabs will continue to seek to murder Jews or, as he puts it, he hopes that "the Palestinians will continue their good fight."UPDATE:Meteor Blades thinks that Israel is opposed to any deal and, therefore, apparently, thinks that the Jewish minority in the Middle East likes never-ending war upon themselves.rwgate thinks that "Israel wants the US to fight it's wars" and "to die in it's place." Gee, that's essentially what the Nazis thought about Jews, what a coincidence.

Aluminati thinks that Netanyahu wants to expel all Muslims from Israel.

mjd in florida is "sick and tired of watching Netanyahu commit genocide against his next door neighbors."

frostbite says that "Bibi is a liar and a warmonger with nukes"

The Dead Man thinks that "Bibi is throwing a war party in our Congressional Building."

denig thinks that "Bibi wants the destruction of Iran."

Texas Twister thinks that Netanyahu is a "major war criminal" apparently because Hamas has every right to bomb the Holy Crap out of southern Israel.

sg13565 claims that "Netanyahu is a right wing war monger"

DiesIrae sticks his or her tongue out of her mouth and calls Netanyahu a "jerk."
cryonaut will probably be screamed at as an anti-Semite for mocking these people. He is apparently among the two percent:

fucking jews can never get along with anyone. If only there was something that can be done about them.

This was probably mockery and snark.

Obscenely anti-semitic comment. n/t (4+ / 0-)

Don't tell me what you believe, show me what you do and I will tell you what you believe.

by Meteor Blades on Tue Mar 03, 2015 at 12:09:27 PM PST

Is Blades this stupid or is he being disingenuous? I assumed that he was misguided, but sincere.

This leads me to wonder if he is not actually malicious. I could be wrong, but I very much doubt that cryonaut was sincere. I feel reasonably certain he was mocking them, because the entire thread ultimately comes down to:

fucking jews can never get along with anyone.

Aware63 calls the Prime Minister of Israel, in an exceedingly liberal manner, a "Bloodthirsty War-Pig."

ginnyv, cleverly trotting out her yiddish, calls Netanyahu a "schmuck."
Fishtroller01 actually threatens that "If Israel doesn't take him out of the driver's seat they will only have themselves to blame for what comes to them internationally. And I hope the US government has the wisdom to stay out of whatever that penalty will be..."

In other words, Fishtroller01 thinks that the Jews richly deserve whatever beating the Arabs deliver.

.

It should be noted that left-leaning hatred toward Benjamin Netanyahu has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with what he actually said, which is that Iran should be held to non-aggressive standards before it should be allowed to join the nuclear club.

31 comments:

That cesspool of bigotry and the support they gain will only damage the democratic party. The last election saw Jewish support go from about 75% to 68% democratic. If the democratic party keeps up their hatred, support will continue to erode

My 'favorite' reaction there was a long thread pondering the possibility of placing PM Netanyahu and Speaker Boehner under arrest. And they wonder why nobody takes them seriously. 'Progressive' fascism in action.

The Great Lumish Bad Luck Streak, however, is continuing and I mark its beginning as October 28, the day the Giants won the World Series and the day that Little Snort died.

It's been four months, now, and I am hoping that with Laurie's broken leg, George's skunking and the subsequent flooding of our living room, and now with Charlie Buckets having to go into treatment for poisoning himself with Tylenol, that perhaps G-d will have a little mercy on my soul.

I've been in and out of the Berkeley Pet Hospital for the last three days, but the little hellion will be just fine.

I only glanced through that post (put up by Daily Kos front-page staff member Joan McCarter, who is a fan of the antisemitic maniac who believes that President Obama is a time-traveling CIA agent from Mars - but hey, he hates Teh Jooooz, so he can't be all bad!), but I'll take a look at the others later.

Ah, hell. Here's hoping things pick up for youze soon, man. Never seen that movie, and I'm deathly allergic to dogs, but I can sympathize.

Not to mention the multitude of comments denying that Iran has ever meddled in the affairs of other countries. You'd think they'd have heard of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And that's not even getting into their bombings / assassinations in Argentina, etc etc.

They really do seem to live in an alternate universe where the demonic 'Israel' of their twisted minds is the source of all problems in the world, while the mullahs are actually glorious unicorns who merely dream of shooting rainbows of peace around the world if only the Great Satan and the Little Satan would just stop bothering them already...

I think it was a good speech with a few excellent lines. Nothing ground-breaking, though, and I still don't understand what was so scary about it that the administration and a few dozen Democrats had to run away and hide from it.

I watched it on C-SPAN, and the camera seemed to focus often on Senator Rand Paul, who also looked like he didn't want to be there, but to his credit he at least stood and half-heartedly clapped.

Personally, I wish he wouldn't have given it there, but I hardly place the blame for the partisan bickering completely on Speaker Boehner's side. In fact, as you've noted, President Obama played a large part in making this speech the hottest-ticket in town in years as a direct result of his own childish actions.

At least he didn't have to end up inventing a country to send people to in order to avoid the speech, as that AP journalist Matt Lee wondered about the other day. ;)

It's truly baffling to find that certain parts of the activist Left can not acknowledge the obvious danger of Islamist Nuclear Bombs. These are strange times we live in, man.

I would note, however, that it's not the entire Left, and that the vast majority of Congressional Democrats also attended this speech, and are certainly not in favor of Islamist Bombs, themselves.

School summed Meteor Blades up well the other day. He's a pompous know-it-all blowhard, who by manner of his ability to write well, has managed to trick many (possibly including himself?) into thinking that he's anything other than what he is. Which is a blinkered ideological fanatic completely incapable of handling criticism, or dealing with ideas which clash with his worldview.

He's nowhere near as bright as he thinks he is, but he knows damned well cryonaut was mocking them. Just another instance of his petulance toward those he views as 'enemies.' Kinda reminds you of somebody else, no?

Calling PM Netanyahu, in particular, a "neocon," gives their game completely away.

There is nothing "neo" about his conservatism. He's a conservative, and as far as I know, always has been. The only reason to apply that particular term to him, is to winkingly call him "one of the bad Jews," without actually calling him that.

My suspicion is that the majority of people who use the term "neocon" are not thinking of Jews, in particular.

If it represents an actual political American sub-movement, then it is an exceedingly nebulous one. There are no self-described "neocon" clubs that I am aware of. They have no self-declared "neocon" venues or journals and the journals that others would point to, such as, say, The National Review, do not discuss themselves in those terms.

"Neocons" are apparently wraith-like creatures of the Victorian imagination.

For the most part they move around unnoticed, but when they show up they seem to be nowhere... yet everywhere.

I take your point, though I'd note that those who call him a bloodthirsty warmonger who deliberately kills children don't necessarily need to know the full history of the blood libel in order to be spreading dangerous antisemitism.

Maybe Commentary is closer to such a venue. It's a good one that I follow, for the record, if even though I disagree with much of what I read there.

It's been hinted at by a few friends, that I may, myself, be a 'neocon,' always and only in the context of discussions on Israel.

I don't think these people are meaning to imply that I'm like Jeane Kirkpatrick or Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Regardless, using the phrase to describe Mr. Netanyahu, an Israeli who has always been a conservative, with no 'neo' to it, speaks to at least subliminal dog-whistling.

The sunset clause should be increased to something like 25 years, with incentives after a minimum 10 based on confidence building steps.

It's pie in the sky. We see that Obama will ram through what HE wants. I wish he was as smart as he thinks, but not smart enough to see that great men have humility.

As important today is the feeling set forth by Al-Arabiya's English edition editor-in-chief Faisal J. Abbas.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192090

"What is absurd, however, is that despite this being perhaps the only thing that brings together Arabs and Israelis (as it threatens them all), the only stakeholder that seems not to realize the danger of the situation is President Obama, who is now infamous for being the latest pen-pal of the Supreme Leader of the World’s biggest terrorist regime: Ayottallah Ali Khamenei," Abbas wrote.

Criticizing Obama for his mismanagement of the region, Abbas continued by saying the president rid Syria of its chemical weapons but left the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in place to continue "to slaughter their own people."

Using this example of Iran's ally Assad, he opined "the real Iranian threat is not JUST the regime’s nuclear ambitions, but its expansionist approach and state-sponsored terrorism activities which are still ongoing."

Iran today is no longer plotting its "terror activities in secret," he wrote, instead documenting openly how Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' covert operations Al-Quds Force and formerly a very secretive person, is actively managing the fighting in Iraq and being photographed while doing so.

This is the stuff that the brainwashed at Daily Kos, who are not representative and they know it, should read and assimilate into their hate filled perceptions. If only they could shut up long enough from trying to outdo one another.

Your first paragraph and the photo next to it were sufficient.These are malicious people. They seem to believe that listening to argument, considering it, weighing it, and changing one's mind are going to cause them some unbearable pain. But my observations of this lot is that apparently they are already in a lot of pain for which listening and thinking independently could be a salve.

I think Mike's last sentence was actually the most important, and telling -

"It should be noted that left-leaning hatred toward that particular Jew has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with what he actually said, which is that Iran should be held to non-aggressive standards before it should be allowed to join the nuclear club."

The depth of their venom and anger is astonishing, and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in any context other than a deep-seated hatred of Jews, in general.

Jay,I agree with you on all of your last 3 comments.I see that Mike has changed the photo at the top of the article to one of a screaming little brat - even more appropriate than the first photo. Yes, certainly a lot of Jews hatred. Why would they even deny it? In years to come I predict they'll stop trying. Once you've gotten them to taste blood, they become hooked.

Balloonhead Matthews has consistently adopted and promoted the view that 'Jews' secretly control the government. In 2012 he complained that 'Bibi thinks he can control OUR elections." Yesterday he pouted that the Jews secretly control the US' foreign policy. He's a straight up Jew hater. Always has been always will be.

Barack Obama on the so-called "Arab Spring" (May 19, 2011):

"There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat."

The "Arab Spring" was the brutal rise of political Islam in the Middle East and this is what Obama compares the Civil Rights Movement to?

The Fundamental Argument:

The progressive movement, and the activist base of the Democratic Party, creates and supports venues that demonize and defame the Jewish state, thereby also creating hatred toward the Jewish people.

Such venues include political journals, such as, but not limited to, Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the UK Guardian, numerous universities throughout the United States and Europe, various NGOs with an anti-Israel agenda, and the entire progressive-left movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) the Jewish people of the state of Israel.

These venues and organizations do not generally criticize Israel, but dehumanize that country.

For this reason, among others, the progressive movement, and the activist base of the Democratic Party, undermines the well-being and safety of Jews around the world, sometimes resulting in violence toward us.

Therefore, as a matter of common sense and basic human decency, Jews should leave the progressive movement and the Democratic Party as we seek to build alternative political structures that are not home to toxic anti-Semitic anti-Zionists, who would see us robbed of self-determination and self-defense.

What You Can't Discuss:

This is a partial list of taboo topics within progressive-left venues around the Arab-Israel conflict. You cannot discuss this material because it undermines the "Palestinian narrative" of perpetual victimhood. This narrative is a club used by the Arab and Muslim enemies of Israel, along with their western progressive allies, to delegitimize that country in preparation for its eventual dissolution.

1) The centuries of Jewish dhimmitude under the boot of Islamic imperialism.

2) The recent construction of Palestinian identity, its connection to Soviet Cold War politics, and how this is an Arab people with a Roman name that refers to Greeks.

3) Arab and Palestinian Koranically-based racism as the fundamental source of the conflict.

4) The ways in which contemporary progressive anti-Zionism serves as a cloak for gross anti-Semitism.

5) The Palestinian theft and appropriation of Jewish history.

6) "Pallywood."

7) The historical connections between the Nazis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Palestinian national movement.

8) The perpetual refusal of the Palestinian-Arabs to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one.

9) The progressive portrayal of terrorists as those fighting a righteous war of "resistance."

10) The Arab-Palestinian indoctrination of children with Jew hatred.

11) Human rights violations against women, children, and Gay people in the Muslim Middle East.

12) The fact that violent Jihadis call themselves "Jihadis" and claim to love death above life.

This is only a partial list, so please let us know the many more that we are missing.

Quote of the Whenever:

It is not that most progressives are anti-Semitic. They aren't. It's that they don't get it, they don't care, and they very much want you to shut the fuck up. - Michael Lumish